


The one(s) without horses, cookies and cold

by Rence



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, One Shot, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21805177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rence/pseuds/Rence
Summary: After the attack on Lux Aurea, Amaya and Janai travel to Storm Spire.
Relationships: Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 151





	The one(s) without horses, cookies and cold

**Author's Note:**

> I bet Err I’d write a Dragon Prince fanfic if she drew a comix. She beat me to it. You can find her work at the end of the story since notes don't support links.
> 
> I don’t know ASL and English is not my first language. Meaning, if you find mistakes in either, please, let me know and I’ll gladly fix them. I know Kazi didn’t travel to Storm Spire with the army. However, I like them and wanted to include them in the fic. Hope this slight canon-divergence won’t bother anyone. The title is, well. I'm watching Friends again, so. It is what it is.

When Janai brings the animal, Amaya can’t deny it’s the most peculiar creature she’s ever seen. She has been to Xadia before and knows it’s full of beasts most humans can’t even dream of. Still, this one is something else. It looks like a lion the size of a horse, with weirdly colored fur and honest to god horns at the top of its head. When it moves to the side, Amaya notices huge wings lying against its back.

"Get on," the Sunfire elf commands. 

Amaya shakes her head. She isn’t afraid, or she wouldn’t ever admit to it, but the promise these wings hold is much more than what she is willing to undergo. Riding a wild, horny beast? She can do that. Riding a wild, horny beast that can take off into the skies any second? So not happening.

The elf rolls her eyes. "Well how else do you propose we get to the Spire?" she asks and folds her arms on her chest. Amaya looks around. There are elves getting into their armor, packing food for the travel and readying their mounts all around them. Most of the animals look just like the beast in front of her, if smaller. They obviously come in different colors and- Amaya takes a step to the side to get a better look at their animal’s rear. Yep, sport a long, split tail with little flames dancing at both ends. She has now officially seen it all.

"I can get you a wingless mount," the dark-skinned woman offers, accurately recognizing the source of Amaya’s reluctance to get on the creature’s back. "If you wanna get to the Spire once the battle is over, that is," she adds with a smirk, deliberately looking at the sky so as to appear nonchalant.

Amaya snorts. It’s not like she can put up much of a fight, not without the weird, nervous elf here to translate. She fixes her captor with a stare and mounts the animal with as much elegance as she can muster. Once looking down on the brunette, she lifts her chin just for the sake of it.

"Your shield," the elf demands, holding her hands out. Reluctantly, Amaya takes it off her back and watches as the other warrior fastens it to the saddle. Then she gets on the beast and plasters herself to Amaya’s back. She grabs the reins with her right hand, wrapping the left around Amaya’s waist. Hot breath grazes her neck and she imagines the elf must be saying something to encourage her, but she doesn’t need to know what.

At least she thinks so. In the next second, the animal moves with such a force it knocks the air out of her lungs. Its wings unfold and within a blink of an eye, it takes off into the sky. Amaya’s stomach does a flip and she remembers all the times her horse tripped in a fast gallop and sent her flying. She doesn’t close her eyes, instead stubbornly looking at the blue infinity and grey horns in front of her. She would have gripped them, had she not felt like that would be an admission of weakness. 

***

When they land, the sun is just rising in the East. The elf dismounts first and looks up at Amaya before she has the chance to get off the beast.

"The lions need to rest and so shall you. We will carry on before noon. That should get us to the Spire just after the sunset," the woman announces. Amaya nods her head and hops off. Although the flight, once she got used to the fact she was hundreds of feet above the ground, wasn’t as unpleasant as she was expecting it to be, she is revealed to feel solid ground under her feet again. 

She grabs her shield and goes to take a look around the modest camp the elves start setting up as soon as they dismount their horned lions. The air is crisp due to the early morning hour and Amaya snorts at the realization the elves probably don’t even get cold thanks to their connection to the sun core. Luckily for her, they still have food that needs fire to get cooked or heated up at the very least, so she is able to find a campfire to sit by. She tries to mask her surprise when she is offered a bowl by one of the soldiers but accepts the bread and soup anyway. If they wanted her dead, they could have left her at Lux Aurea. 

She’s about halfway through her food when a smiling face appears in front of her. It’s the weird, nervous elf. They move their glasses up their nose and fidget.

"How was your first flight?" they ask. Amaya doesn’t respond at first, contemplating the elf’s motives. When she decides there is no harm in answering, she comes up with simple: _Good._

The elf nods their head frantically and continues: "My name is Kazi," they explain and sign-spell the name for her. Amaya asks them about the name of their lady.

"I suppose the right title would be my queen, now," Kazi laughs nervously, but spells the name anyway. _Janai._ Amaya purses her lips as if deep in thought, even though she already has a nickname for the elf. She bends the fingers of both of her hands, the right one closer to her chest, and moves the hands to horizontally brush against each other. When her knuckles almost meet, she balls her fingers into fists.

"Oh no!" Kazi shrieks, looking both horrified and amused. "She isn’t mean. She is just… complicated. Reserved. She needs to maintain a certain, you know. Distance. In the end, you are still her prisoner," Kazi grins, knowing as well as Amaya that hasn’t been true for quite some time. Even before the attack on Lux Aurea, many of their conversations in the middle of the ring of fire were more friendly banter than actual interrogation.

Amaya smirks and brushes her chin with her index and middle finger.

"I wouldn’t call her cute either," Kazi murmurs, but this time they sign as well so that Amaya could understand. She doesn’t fight the smile that pulls at her lips.

She looks up when Kazi suddenly springs to their feet. Janai is standing to her left, frown on her face. She obviously asked Kazi something Amaya didn’t catch, judging by the fast string of words falling from the younger elf’s lips.

Amaya doesn’t pay much mind to them. She returns her attention to the bowl of soup in her hands and sighs. It seems not even the elves can make army food any good. She thinks about Corvus’ oatmeal raisin cookies and wonders whether she’ll ever have the chance to taste them again.

Light touch on her shoulder brings her back to reality. Janai sits next to her and offers a weak, strained smile. One of the soldiers brings her the same bowl Amaya is holding in her lap and she accepts it, swirling the liquid around before taking a sip. Amaya observes the elf, watches her throat move and frown deepen with each gulp.

"Is human food any better?" Janai asks after she places the bowl aside and wipes her lips with the back of her hand. Amaya shakes her head. She looks up, finds Kazi and attempts to make a "what would soldiers need high-quality food for" joke.

Janai smiles at that. "And the civilians? Is their food any good?" she asks. Amaya is more than happy to tell them about oatmeal raisin cookies and how they are the best food humanity has invented yet.

"Sorry, what is oatmeal? And what is," Kazi places the tips of the fingers of their right hand against their left palm and rotates them from side to front. Amaya sighs, frustrated at the cultural difference that now forces her to explain the words _oatmeal_ and _cookies_. At least elves know raisins.

She spells the word for Kazi and does her best to explain the incredible idea that cookies are. It seems elves indeed do have cookies, only they don’t call them _cookies_. Amaya promises them both she will present oatmeal raisin cookies to them one day, and it is the first promise she has ever made in her life she doesn’t think she will be able to keep.

***

They sit by the fire for a few more hours. Kazi leaves several minutes after the soldiers start disappearing to get some rest. Amaya remains seated with Janai by her side. Even though the sun has risen now, the air is still cold and breath is leaving Amaya in little steamy puffs. She breathes at her hands and rubs them against her arms.

"What are you doing?" Janai asks once she catches Amaya’s attention. Amaya matches her incredulous frown and is once again faced with the challenge to explain something so natural she almost feels stupid about it. She points at the sun and signs _big_ and _shiny_ , then smiles. Once she covers the sun with her palm, she shakes her whole body and makes her teeth chatter. Proud of the good job she thinks she's done, she pulls her eyebrows up in silent question. 

Janai, however, doesn’t seem to understand the concept of cold at all. She shrugs and asks: "Are you… afraid of the dark?" Amaya rolls her eyes and catches Janai’s wrist. She brings the elf’s fingers to her cheek. As soon as her hot digits touch cold skin, Janai pulls her hand back as if she got burnt.

"You are cold!" she exclaims, eyes round with surprise. Amaya scoffs, nodding twice. Odd creatures, these elves. No cold, no horses, no oatmeal raisin cookies. What’s next, no ale? Amaya frowns at the thought. She hasn’t ever seen the elves drink. What if they don’t know ale, either? There really is so much she needs to teach them.

She stops herself in the middle of the thought. Teaching them would mean actually planning on spending more time with them and that isn’t happening, by any chance. In the evening, she will be reunited with her family, there is a battle to fight and if they survive, she is taking her nephews back to Katolis. There won’t be any teaching because there won’t be any elves in her life after that.

She doesn’t feel as ecstatic about the image as she thinks she should. Sure, rotting in a cell isn’t much. But she came to like the odd creature Kazi is and Janai- Well, let’s say she isn’t half bad, either. The elf pulls Amaya out of her thoughts when she touches her face again. She traces the tips of her fingers along Amaya’s scar and the general’s cheeks suddenly feel very hot. Probably some elven magic. Obviously.

"Let me," Janai says softly, now extending both of her hands to where Amaya’s rest in her lap. The elf shuffles closer to her, their knees touching now, as she slips her gloves off and gently holds Amaya's numb fingers in her hot palms.

The simple touch makes her strangely warm and content, the way ale in good company sometimes does, makes her forget about Viren and the war, about dragons and lost princes, and Amaya wants the moment to last forever. She looks up, meets Janai’s dark eyes and silently enjoys the fond flame she feels spreading from her chest to her whole body.

***

[Err's sweet comix](https://twitter.com/Err_em/status/1205933526304141319)


End file.
